Eva Bentcheva - Academia.edu (original) (raw)
Papers by Eva Bentcheva
Sung Tieu: One Thousand Times, 2023
In my short life I have mostly seen what is right in front of me, and not the great power struggl... more In my short life I have mostly seen what is right in front of me, and not the great power struggles between adults in offices in Washington, Hanoi, London, and the former East Berlin. Sung Tieu, ¹ In a fictional letter-to-the editor titled "Inside the Blocks," seven-year old "Ching" responds to the article "The Vietnamese in Germany: No Jobs, No Country" published in the New York Times in . Written by Alan Cowell, the latter described the social and political positioning of one former East Berlin's largest migrant worker and asylum-seeker housing complexes at Gehrenseestrasse . Cowell, according to the fictional persona of Ching, reiterated the stereotype of the complex as an embodiment of failed state ideology and criminalization of migrant communities in Germany after reunification. However, for Ching who still lives "inside the blocks," the daily reality is not one of state politics. Instead, she describes an intimate experience of growing up, living together, and forming lasting bonds in close quarters, despite the presence of control mechanisms designed to separate and contain. Ching² is an alias for the artist Sung Tieu who herself lived in the complex at Gehrenseestrasse ³ with her mother between and . Her letter is part of a series of texts authored by the artist, and specifically designed to resemble newspaper articles and commentaries. Their contents explore racial tensions and human struggles in the face of bureaucracy, surveillance, and everyday contacts between people in public spaces.⁴ In a similar vein, Ching evokes both a frank, childhood take on the world, as well as a deeper portrayal of a housing complex as a socio-politico "world" of its own. As argued by art historian Monica Juneja, "worlds are plural-we are born into one, may engage it, retreat from it or move to another one; worlds may collide, collaborate or collapse."⁵ So too, Ching/Tieu invite their readers to imaginatively and affectively enter into the complex in the s. Here, they witness and learn of an inner space which had been largely concealed from wider society since its creation. The history and form of Gehrenseestrasse has been a recurring motif throughout a number of Tieu's past works. Most recently, her exhibition, "No Jobs, No Country "(), at n.b.k. in Berlin was devoted entirely to the complex. The centerpiece comprised the sculpture Block G (Gehrenseestrasse, Berlin), , a scaled steel architectural replica of the building's floor plan in which Tieu had previously lived. This was surrounded by thin cutout outlines into the gallery walls revealing the windows behind (Traces, ), a series of lasercut lines on A-sized plaster cast tracing the lines of a Berlin residence permit application, five personal photographs from her childhood days in the complex, and the aforementioned letter "Inside the Blocks." While reviews of
Charting Space: The Cartographies of Conceptual Art, 2023
This chapter revisits the notion of Delirium ambulatorium conceived by Brazilian artist Hélio Oit... more This chapter revisits the notion of Delirium ambulatorium conceived by Brazilian artist Hélio Oiticica in 1978. It describes Oiticica’s interest in the simple act of wandering or walking through different areas of a city, particularly the favelas of Rio de Janeiro. Here, Delirium ambulatorium consisted of the act of identifying the elements that compose the city and the subsequent generation of creative situations around these elements. Looking beyond Delirium ambulatorium in Oiticica’s own practice, this chapter considers its relevance as a methodology for artists working transnationally with conceptual art as mapping. It draws connections to approaches by diasporic artists – particularly from South and Southeast Asia – who carried out artistic walks (accompanied by material and documentary interventions) during the 1960s and 1990s amidst heightened moments of racial and postcolonial discourses. These include UK-based Rasheed Araeen (b. 1938, Karachi, Pakistan) who undertook photo-documented journeys through London’s transport infrastructure (Christmas Day, 1979) and sites of workers’ strikes and anti-racism protests (Paki Bastard (Portrait of the Artist as a Black Person), 1977–8), as well as Lee Wen’s (1957–2019, Singapore) performance-series Journey of a Yellow Man (1992–2012), in which he video-documented himself walking through cities with his body painted yellow. In light of such works, this paper explores Delirium ambulatorium as representative of a shared philosophy and methodology of transnational ‘conceptual mapping’ between the 1960s and the 1990s.
Southeast of Now: Directions in Modern and Contemporary Art in Asia, 2022
Southeast of Now: Directions in Contemporary and Modern Art in Asia
An Interview with Tuan Mami TUAN MAMI in conversation with EVA BENTCHEVA Eva Bentcheva: Mami, you... more An Interview with Tuan Mami TUAN MAMI in conversation with EVA BENTCHEVA Eva Bentcheva: Mami, you have described your recent practice as moving away from 'performance art' towards 'performative installations' or 'environments'. Could you explain what these terms mean for you? Tuan Mami: I had been doing 'performance art' since the early days of my art practice, such as in the series The Cover from 2007 until 2009 where I used condensed milk. On other occasions, I used the body and environment as materials in works like Let It Grow Up On (2010). I found the language and possibilities of performance art very open-ended and empowering for artists to explore different ways of thinking. A few years ago, I started to feel a need to push the limitations of this art form, especially after I began engaging with social issues and taking on a more research-based practice. I realized that there is scope to transform and develop performance art beyond its form and physical presentation. I have since been developing my art practice as 'performative installations'. For me, this is art defined by the creation of environments, platforms or situations, rather than the representation of the body. It can include actions, objects, installations and so on, but they all need to be involved in a performativedialogic progress. In this structure, the artist and all participating elements/
Southeast of Now: Directions in Contemporary and Modern Art in Asia
Southeast of Now: Directions in Modern and Contemporary Art in Asia, 2022
An Interview with Tuan Mami TUAN MAMI in conversation with EVA BENTCHEVA Eva Bentcheva: Mami, you... more An Interview with Tuan Mami TUAN MAMI in conversation with EVA BENTCHEVA Eva Bentcheva: Mami, you have described your recent practice as moving away from 'performance art' towards 'performative installations' or 'environments'. Could you explain what these terms mean for you? Tuan Mami: I had been doing 'performance art' since the early days of my art practice, such as in the series The Cover from 2007 until 2009 where I used condensed milk. On other occasions, I used the body and environment as materials in works like Let It Grow Up On (2010). I found the language and possibilities of performance art very open-ended and empowering for artists to explore different ways of thinking. A few years ago, I started to feel a need to push the limitations of this art form, especially after I began engaging with social issues and taking on a more research-based practice. I realized that there is scope to transform and develop performance art beyond its form and physical presentation. I have since been developing my art practice as 'performative installations'. For me, this is art defined by the creation of environments, platforms or situations, rather than the representation of the body. It can include actions, objects, installations and so on, but they all need to be involved in a performativedialogic progress. In this structure, the artist and all participating elements/
David Medalla: Parables of Friendship, Museion, 2022
Pathways of Performativity in Contemporary Art of Southeast Asia, 2022
Southeast of Now: Directions in Contemporary and Modern Art in Asia Volume 6, Number 1, March 2022
Pathways of Performativity in Contemporary Art of Southeast Asia, 2022
Recognised as one of the formative artistic practices after the Second World War, Fluxus emerged ... more Recognised as one of the formative artistic practices after the Second World War, Fluxus emerged in the 1960s comprising a diverse and dispersed international community of artists. Their works were bound by creative exchanges of found objects, mail art and instruction-based performances open to re-enactments by others. While Fluxus activities have been extensively studied in relation to Western Europe, North America and East Asia, this paper argues that Fluxus 'resonances', or parallel developments in practices and concepts, may be charted within Southeast Asian visual art and performative practices since the 1960s. Seen alongside Fluxus resonances across Latin America and Eastern Europe, a study of Fluxus in Southeast Asia reveals a performative 'translation' of ideas and practices which continue to survive in the work of artists such as Philippines-based Judy Freya Sibayan.
Bahala Ka, Universitätsverlag Hildesheim / Kunstverein Hildesheim, 2022
Don't Call It Art! Contemporary Art in Vietnam 1993-1999, edited by Annette Bhaghwati and Veronika Radulovic. Bielefeld: Kerber Verlag, 2021
Interlaced Journeys: Diaspora and the Contemporary in Southeast Asian Art, 2020
This chapter examines different uses of the terms "artistic mobility" and "diaspora" through Phil... more This chapter examines different uses of the terms "artistic mobility" and "diaspora" through Philippine art history and recent curatorial practices.
Interlaced Journeys: Diaspora and the Contemporary in Southeast Asian Art, Patrick D. Flores and Loredana Pazzini-Paracciani (eds.), Hong Kong: Osage Publications, 2020
Haus der Kunst, Munich, 2020
An insight into Sung Tieu's extensive new production Zugzwang, the largest and most comprehensive... more An insight into Sung Tieu's extensive new production Zugzwang, the largest and most comprehensive work by the German-Vietnamese artist to date.
Hyundai Tate Research Centre: Transnational, 2020
This report reflects on the three-day conference ‘Axis of Solidarity: Landmarks, Platforms, Futur... more This report reflects on the three-day conference ‘Axis of Solidarity: Landmarks, Platforms, Futures’ which took place at Tate Modern in London on 23–25 February 2019. Developed as the first large-scale event of the newly inaugurated Hyundai Tate Research Centre: Transnational, the conference was held in collaboration with the Centre for Comparative Modernities at Cornell University and the Africa Centre in Sharjah.
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Since 2013, Berlin-based artist Lizza May David has developed works which explore the histories a... more Since 2013, Berlin-based artist Lizza May David has developed works which explore the histories and potentialities of archival gaps. While working with the collection of the Cultural Centre of the Philippines (CCP) in 2014, David chanced upon a series of grey L-shaped objects listed as ‘Artist Unknown’, which she took up as the subject of several exhibitions and performances in Manila and Berlin. In conversation with art historian Eva Bentcheva, the artist discusses her interest in archival gaps across the Philippines and Germany, and details how their collaboration unearthed the author of the ‘unknown’ objects from the CCP collection.
Conceptualism - Intersectional Readings, International Framings: Situating 'Black Artists & Modernism' in Europe, 2019
Tate Papers, 2019
This paper shows how the Philippine visual art scene of the 1960s and 1970s offered particularly ... more This paper shows how the Philippine visual art scene of the 1960s and 1970s offered particularly fertile ground for early experiments in process, interactivity and participation in art. Focusing on the installation-like ‘environments’ of Roberto Chabet, the community-centred compositions of José Maceda and the interactive performances of David Medalla, Judy Freya Sibayan and Raymundo Albano, it looks at the significance of the term ‘experimental’ in Philippine art at this time, and discusses the intersection between discourse-building, artistic practice and institutional politics.
Ctrl+P, 2019
Since 2013, Berlin-based artist Lizza May David has developed works which explore the histories a... more Since 2013, Berlin-based artist Lizza May David has developed works which explore the histories and potentialities of archival gaps. While working with the art collection of the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) in 2014, David chanced upon a series of grey L-shaped paintings unidentified as to their author and thus were listed in the inventory under “Artist Unknown” which she took up as the subject of several exhibitions and performances in Manila and Berlin. In conversation with art historian Eva Bentcheva, the artist discusses her interest in archival gaps in her work in the Philippines and Germany, and details how their collaboration unearthed the author of the “unknown” works from the CCP collection.
Sung Tieu: One Thousand Times, 2023
In my short life I have mostly seen what is right in front of me, and not the great power struggl... more In my short life I have mostly seen what is right in front of me, and not the great power struggles between adults in offices in Washington, Hanoi, London, and the former East Berlin. Sung Tieu, ¹ In a fictional letter-to-the editor titled "Inside the Blocks," seven-year old "Ching" responds to the article "The Vietnamese in Germany: No Jobs, No Country" published in the New York Times in . Written by Alan Cowell, the latter described the social and political positioning of one former East Berlin's largest migrant worker and asylum-seeker housing complexes at Gehrenseestrasse . Cowell, according to the fictional persona of Ching, reiterated the stereotype of the complex as an embodiment of failed state ideology and criminalization of migrant communities in Germany after reunification. However, for Ching who still lives "inside the blocks," the daily reality is not one of state politics. Instead, she describes an intimate experience of growing up, living together, and forming lasting bonds in close quarters, despite the presence of control mechanisms designed to separate and contain. Ching² is an alias for the artist Sung Tieu who herself lived in the complex at Gehrenseestrasse ³ with her mother between and . Her letter is part of a series of texts authored by the artist, and specifically designed to resemble newspaper articles and commentaries. Their contents explore racial tensions and human struggles in the face of bureaucracy, surveillance, and everyday contacts between people in public spaces.⁴ In a similar vein, Ching evokes both a frank, childhood take on the world, as well as a deeper portrayal of a housing complex as a socio-politico "world" of its own. As argued by art historian Monica Juneja, "worlds are plural-we are born into one, may engage it, retreat from it or move to another one; worlds may collide, collaborate or collapse."⁵ So too, Ching/Tieu invite their readers to imaginatively and affectively enter into the complex in the s. Here, they witness and learn of an inner space which had been largely concealed from wider society since its creation. The history and form of Gehrenseestrasse has been a recurring motif throughout a number of Tieu's past works. Most recently, her exhibition, "No Jobs, No Country "(), at n.b.k. in Berlin was devoted entirely to the complex. The centerpiece comprised the sculpture Block G (Gehrenseestrasse, Berlin), , a scaled steel architectural replica of the building's floor plan in which Tieu had previously lived. This was surrounded by thin cutout outlines into the gallery walls revealing the windows behind (Traces, ), a series of lasercut lines on A-sized plaster cast tracing the lines of a Berlin residence permit application, five personal photographs from her childhood days in the complex, and the aforementioned letter "Inside the Blocks." While reviews of
Charting Space: The Cartographies of Conceptual Art, 2023
This chapter revisits the notion of Delirium ambulatorium conceived by Brazilian artist Hélio Oit... more This chapter revisits the notion of Delirium ambulatorium conceived by Brazilian artist Hélio Oiticica in 1978. It describes Oiticica’s interest in the simple act of wandering or walking through different areas of a city, particularly the favelas of Rio de Janeiro. Here, Delirium ambulatorium consisted of the act of identifying the elements that compose the city and the subsequent generation of creative situations around these elements. Looking beyond Delirium ambulatorium in Oiticica’s own practice, this chapter considers its relevance as a methodology for artists working transnationally with conceptual art as mapping. It draws connections to approaches by diasporic artists – particularly from South and Southeast Asia – who carried out artistic walks (accompanied by material and documentary interventions) during the 1960s and 1990s amidst heightened moments of racial and postcolonial discourses. These include UK-based Rasheed Araeen (b. 1938, Karachi, Pakistan) who undertook photo-documented journeys through London’s transport infrastructure (Christmas Day, 1979) and sites of workers’ strikes and anti-racism protests (Paki Bastard (Portrait of the Artist as a Black Person), 1977–8), as well as Lee Wen’s (1957–2019, Singapore) performance-series Journey of a Yellow Man (1992–2012), in which he video-documented himself walking through cities with his body painted yellow. In light of such works, this paper explores Delirium ambulatorium as representative of a shared philosophy and methodology of transnational ‘conceptual mapping’ between the 1960s and the 1990s.
Southeast of Now: Directions in Modern and Contemporary Art in Asia, 2022
Southeast of Now: Directions in Contemporary and Modern Art in Asia
An Interview with Tuan Mami TUAN MAMI in conversation with EVA BENTCHEVA Eva Bentcheva: Mami, you... more An Interview with Tuan Mami TUAN MAMI in conversation with EVA BENTCHEVA Eva Bentcheva: Mami, you have described your recent practice as moving away from 'performance art' towards 'performative installations' or 'environments'. Could you explain what these terms mean for you? Tuan Mami: I had been doing 'performance art' since the early days of my art practice, such as in the series The Cover from 2007 until 2009 where I used condensed milk. On other occasions, I used the body and environment as materials in works like Let It Grow Up On (2010). I found the language and possibilities of performance art very open-ended and empowering for artists to explore different ways of thinking. A few years ago, I started to feel a need to push the limitations of this art form, especially after I began engaging with social issues and taking on a more research-based practice. I realized that there is scope to transform and develop performance art beyond its form and physical presentation. I have since been developing my art practice as 'performative installations'. For me, this is art defined by the creation of environments, platforms or situations, rather than the representation of the body. It can include actions, objects, installations and so on, but they all need to be involved in a performativedialogic progress. In this structure, the artist and all participating elements/
Southeast of Now: Directions in Contemporary and Modern Art in Asia
Southeast of Now: Directions in Modern and Contemporary Art in Asia, 2022
An Interview with Tuan Mami TUAN MAMI in conversation with EVA BENTCHEVA Eva Bentcheva: Mami, you... more An Interview with Tuan Mami TUAN MAMI in conversation with EVA BENTCHEVA Eva Bentcheva: Mami, you have described your recent practice as moving away from 'performance art' towards 'performative installations' or 'environments'. Could you explain what these terms mean for you? Tuan Mami: I had been doing 'performance art' since the early days of my art practice, such as in the series The Cover from 2007 until 2009 where I used condensed milk. On other occasions, I used the body and environment as materials in works like Let It Grow Up On (2010). I found the language and possibilities of performance art very open-ended and empowering for artists to explore different ways of thinking. A few years ago, I started to feel a need to push the limitations of this art form, especially after I began engaging with social issues and taking on a more research-based practice. I realized that there is scope to transform and develop performance art beyond its form and physical presentation. I have since been developing my art practice as 'performative installations'. For me, this is art defined by the creation of environments, platforms or situations, rather than the representation of the body. It can include actions, objects, installations and so on, but they all need to be involved in a performativedialogic progress. In this structure, the artist and all participating elements/
David Medalla: Parables of Friendship, Museion, 2022
Pathways of Performativity in Contemporary Art of Southeast Asia, 2022
Southeast of Now: Directions in Contemporary and Modern Art in Asia Volume 6, Number 1, March 2022
Pathways of Performativity in Contemporary Art of Southeast Asia, 2022
Recognised as one of the formative artistic practices after the Second World War, Fluxus emerged ... more Recognised as one of the formative artistic practices after the Second World War, Fluxus emerged in the 1960s comprising a diverse and dispersed international community of artists. Their works were bound by creative exchanges of found objects, mail art and instruction-based performances open to re-enactments by others. While Fluxus activities have been extensively studied in relation to Western Europe, North America and East Asia, this paper argues that Fluxus 'resonances', or parallel developments in practices and concepts, may be charted within Southeast Asian visual art and performative practices since the 1960s. Seen alongside Fluxus resonances across Latin America and Eastern Europe, a study of Fluxus in Southeast Asia reveals a performative 'translation' of ideas and practices which continue to survive in the work of artists such as Philippines-based Judy Freya Sibayan.
Bahala Ka, Universitätsverlag Hildesheim / Kunstverein Hildesheim, 2022
Don't Call It Art! Contemporary Art in Vietnam 1993-1999, edited by Annette Bhaghwati and Veronika Radulovic. Bielefeld: Kerber Verlag, 2021
Interlaced Journeys: Diaspora and the Contemporary in Southeast Asian Art, 2020
This chapter examines different uses of the terms "artistic mobility" and "diaspora" through Phil... more This chapter examines different uses of the terms "artistic mobility" and "diaspora" through Philippine art history and recent curatorial practices.
Interlaced Journeys: Diaspora and the Contemporary in Southeast Asian Art, Patrick D. Flores and Loredana Pazzini-Paracciani (eds.), Hong Kong: Osage Publications, 2020
Haus der Kunst, Munich, 2020
An insight into Sung Tieu's extensive new production Zugzwang, the largest and most comprehensive... more An insight into Sung Tieu's extensive new production Zugzwang, the largest and most comprehensive work by the German-Vietnamese artist to date.
Hyundai Tate Research Centre: Transnational, 2020
This report reflects on the three-day conference ‘Axis of Solidarity: Landmarks, Platforms, Futur... more This report reflects on the three-day conference ‘Axis of Solidarity: Landmarks, Platforms, Futures’ which took place at Tate Modern in London on 23–25 February 2019. Developed as the first large-scale event of the newly inaugurated Hyundai Tate Research Centre: Transnational, the conference was held in collaboration with the Centre for Comparative Modernities at Cornell University and the Africa Centre in Sharjah.
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Since 2013, Berlin-based artist Lizza May David has developed works which explore the histories a... more Since 2013, Berlin-based artist Lizza May David has developed works which explore the histories and potentialities of archival gaps. While working with the collection of the Cultural Centre of the Philippines (CCP) in 2014, David chanced upon a series of grey L-shaped objects listed as ‘Artist Unknown’, which she took up as the subject of several exhibitions and performances in Manila and Berlin. In conversation with art historian Eva Bentcheva, the artist discusses her interest in archival gaps across the Philippines and Germany, and details how their collaboration unearthed the author of the ‘unknown’ objects from the CCP collection.
Conceptualism - Intersectional Readings, International Framings: Situating 'Black Artists & Modernism' in Europe, 2019
Tate Papers, 2019
This paper shows how the Philippine visual art scene of the 1960s and 1970s offered particularly ... more This paper shows how the Philippine visual art scene of the 1960s and 1970s offered particularly fertile ground for early experiments in process, interactivity and participation in art. Focusing on the installation-like ‘environments’ of Roberto Chabet, the community-centred compositions of José Maceda and the interactive performances of David Medalla, Judy Freya Sibayan and Raymundo Albano, it looks at the significance of the term ‘experimental’ in Philippine art at this time, and discusses the intersection between discourse-building, artistic practice and institutional politics.
Ctrl+P, 2019
Since 2013, Berlin-based artist Lizza May David has developed works which explore the histories a... more Since 2013, Berlin-based artist Lizza May David has developed works which explore the histories and potentialities of archival gaps. While working with the art collection of the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) in 2014, David chanced upon a series of grey L-shaped paintings unidentified as to their author and thus were listed in the inventory under “Artist Unknown” which she took up as the subject of several exhibitions and performances in Manila and Berlin. In conversation with art historian Eva Bentcheva, the artist discusses her interest in archival gaps in her work in the Philippines and Germany, and details how their collaboration unearthed the author of the “unknown” works from the CCP collection.
Recent studies on Fluxus in Eastern Europe, Latin America and East Asia have expanded its histori... more Recent studies on Fluxus in Eastern Europe, Latin America and East Asia have expanded its historical and geo-political map. However, little attention has been paid to Fluxus activities in Southeast Asia. In contrast to the existence of interpersonal Fluxus networks in East Asia, Fluxus practices and principles reached Southeast Asia primarily through what art historian Reiko Tomii terms ‘resonances’ (2016). This paper discusses how Fluxus resonated in Southeast Asia through word-of-mouth, fragmented documentation, publications and gift-giving between the 1960s and 1980s. Focusing on such modes of transmission in the Philippines – a nation which had a prolific conceptual and contemporary art scene amidst the dictatorial regime of President Ferdinand Marcos (1968-86) - this paper examines the Fluxus resonances via two artists: David Cortez Medalla (1942-2020) who came into contact with Fluxus figures and ideas while resident in France and Britain between the 1960s and 1980s, and Judy Freya Sibayan (1953 -) who studied fine art in Manila during the 1970s when she developed a strong awareness of Fluxus practices from her peers, as well as circulating accounts and documentary materials. Through examples of their works, this paper argues that the Philippines - and Southeast Asia more broadly – does not represent a belated ‘outpost’ of Fluxus networks. Rather, it is a site where Fluxus’ playful experiments, exchanges, multiple authorship, and poetic gestures were actively ‘translated’ (Mignolo & Walsh, 2018) as part of a postcolonial vision to identify with what artist Robert Filiou described as the ‘eternal network’ (1967) of experimental art beyond national and institutional strictures.
Talk: 'Participatory Curating in Southeast Asia' While the Indonesian collective, ruangrupa, has... more Talk: 'Participatory Curating in Southeast Asia'
While the Indonesian collective, ruangrupa, has recently come into the international limelight through their curation of documenta 15, participatory curating has a much broader history within Southeast Asia. Putting ruangrupa in context alongside other Southeast Asian artistic and curatorial formations, such as the Chiang-Mai Social Installation in Thailand and The Artists Village in Singapore, among others, this talk presents the close-knit - and often intertwined - relationship between artistic practice, curating, urban infrastructure and socio-political participation across a number of 'grassroots' curatorial collectives in the region.
https://japanisches-palais.skd.museum/en/frei-raeume/transkulturelle-akademie/
While the close relationship between live performance and audio-visual documentation has been wid... more While the close relationship between live performance and audio-visual documentation has been widely acknowledged (Auslander 2006; Jones 1997), the recent rise of institutional and online archives of Performance Art has raised a question: what alternative forms of ‘documentation’ beyond photography, video and textual accounts exist to convey socio-political contexts and micro-histories of performances? Moreover, does archiving performative art necessitate not only material, but also social, polyvocal and temporal forms of documentation? These questions have been at the heart of academic, as well as curatorial and artistic engagements with Performance Art over the past decade. In this talk, I will reflect upon my personal experiences of participating in the creation, as well as curating, an archive of performance art of/from Southeast Asia in the UK and Germany between 2016-19. Looking to more recent works such as Tuan Mami’s performative installation Immigrating Garden (2011 – present), I will conclude by discussing the key role of artists in developing archival forms which capture invisible voices and histories.
With an emphasis on mobility, exchanges and interaction, performance art has often been situated ... more With an emphasis on mobility, exchanges and interaction, performance art has often been situated beyond the borders of national art histories. Yet, despite its seemingly 'transnational' nature, performance art practices often draw upon nationally-rooted notions of community, site, history, participation and presence. This presentation reflects upon two research projects which I have developed; my doctoral research on performance art histories through the lens of British South Asian diasporic identities in Britain since the 1960s, and my ongoing postdoctoral research on the post-World War II histories of 'performativity' in contemporary art of Southeast Asia. It compares and contrasts the methodologies used in these two research projects. In doing so, it hones in on several ensuing questions: where do the 'transnational' elements of performance art reside - in the works themselves or the biographies of the artists? To what ends have the notions of mobility, migration and exchange been privileged in the study of performance art? What are some of the idiosyncratic ways in which artists consciously deploy performance to position themselves across international and national aesthetics, as well as socio-political practices?
Arriving to the UK in the early 1960s, the nascent artistic careers of Rasheed Araeen (b. 1935, K... more Arriving to the UK in the early 1960s, the nascent artistic careers of Rasheed Araeen (b. 1935, Karachi, Pakistan) and Prafulla Mohanti (b. 1936, Nanpur, Orissa, India) were marked by critical explorations of postwar Minimalism and Abstraction. Both artists developed a series of participatory performances in the 1960s and 1970s - Araeen’s Canal Events and Mohanti’s Painting-Performances – in which they activated viewers and sites via abstract painting, sculpture, collective actions and dance. After initially staging these works in the UK, particularly London, Araeen and Mohanti also enacted them in Karachi and Orissa. This paper delves into the dynamics of recognition and (mis)interpretation as the works took form across various sites. Drawing on art historian Monica Juneja’s (2011) exploration of the term “global” as a space riddled with local contingencies, as well as Kobena Mercer’s (2006) study of Abstraction’s cross-fertisiling capabilities, this paper explores Araeen and Mohanti’s performances as gestures of aesthetic ‘translation’. It revisits how the artists drew upon contemporary, vernacular and literary forms in order to articulate the parameters – and, at times, incommensurability – of artistic forms traversing London and South Asia between the 1960s and 1980s.
Talk available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-I-WYoLobeI
In 2020, startling images of Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) in Singapore and Hong Kong made glo... more In 2020, startling images of Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) in Singapore and Hong Kong made global headlines. In the midst of a worldwide call for social distancing and self-isolation to combat the Covid-19 pandemic, thousands of domestic helper OFWs were banished from their employers’ homes and assigned to packed living quarters. Unable to resume work, nor return to the Philippines in the wake of regional travel bans, their predicament became a visual trope for the precariousness, exploitation and vulnerability of Southeast Asian workers in a global capitalist economy.
Female labour of OFWs has in particular been thematised in prolific research over the past two decades. From domestic helpers in Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan, and the Middle East, to nurses in Europe and the USA, and subjects of the thriving transnational industry of ‘mail order brides’, the figure of the Philippine female worker has become a recurrent figure in studies on gender and exploitation in ‘labour diasporas’ (Cohen, 1997). Within contemporary art, however, there has been a notable effort to move beyond the common trope of ‘exploitation’ defining a number of sociological studies.
These efforts have a found a productive voice in multimedia art and experimental film, particularly in the genre of ‘docu-fiction’; a mode of filmmaking which traverses real life experiences and fictional modes of narration and representation.
Shifting away from documentary modes of capturing Filipina workers’ experiences (as seen in acclaimed films such as Babyruth Villarama’s Sunday Beauty Queen (2016) on self-organised beauty pageants by domestic workers in Hong Kong), this talk examines how artists working with ‘docu-fiction’ have unravelled labour via filmic explorations. It presents different docu-fiction film approaches developed by three multimedia artists: London-based Vanessa Scully, Toronto/Berlin-based Stephanie Comilang and Berlin-based Lizza May David.
Scully’s ongoing series, Maid in Mayfair (2017) and Marisa 4.0 (2018), delves into the role of music videos and commercials as formats influencing the reception of domestic helpers and mail order brides in Britain and Australia. Further delving into the role of surveillance and communication technologies, Comilang’s Come to Me, Paradise (2016) explores the intersections of agency, self-presentation and the overbearing presence of the state and employer in the day-to-day lives of OFWs in Hong Kong. Finally, David’s Looking Inwards (2008) examines the role of filmic self-documentation and digital photography as a form of autobiographical communication between the Philippines, Hong Kong and Germany. Focusing on their recourse to self-representation, communication technologies, popular culture and advertisement, this talk discusses how Scully, Comilang and David develop filmic approaches to investigate (self)constructions of Philippine female labourers.
While performance art has often been linked to politics of representation, this talk explores per... more While performance art has often been linked to politics of representation, this talk explores performance through the lens of personal positionings vis-a-vis 'transnationalism'. It defines performance art as action or inter-action in the context of the visual arts, and examines the ways it was mobilised in Rasheed Araeen's Canal Events (1968–72) staged in London, Paris and Karachi; Prafulla Mohanti's Painting-Performances (1960s–90s) developed in Leeds, London and Orissa; and Sutapa Biswas's Kali (1984) enacted during her undergraduate degree at Leeds University.
Taking up the frameworks of ‘itinerancy’ (Adadol-Ingawanij, 2018) and ‘disobedience’ (Mignolo, 2009), this talk discusses the central role of uncomfortable or risky encounters and mobility in these works, and their emphasis on independent thought and personal subjectivity which went beyond national narratives and over-arching discourses on postcolonialism or ‘black art’. In doing so, it proposes that Araeen, Mohanti and Biswas’s performances can be situated alongside works by artists such as David Medalla and Mona Hatoum, in whose practices performance presented expanded possibilities for negotiating ‘transnationalism’ as both perspective and artistic method in Britain between the 1960s and 1980s.
This paper delves into the discursive space from which the short-lived periodical Black Phoenix: ... more This paper delves into the discursive space from which the short-lived periodical Black Phoenix: Third World Perspective on Contemporary Art and Culture (1978-79) was born. Often regarded as the amateur precursor to the influential journal Third Text: Critical Perspectives on Contemporary Art and Culture founded by Rasheed Araeen in 1987, Black Phoenix’s conversational, experimental and critical nature is due revisitation. Conceived by Araeen in editorial collaboration with Mahmood Jamal in 1977, Black Phoenix evolved into a platform for voicing alternative views on the notion of ‘Third World perspectives’. This paper maps this self-reflexive turn within two developments; The first locates Black Phoenix as part of a lineage of artist-led publications in Britain which tackled the parameters of ‘internationalism’ during the 1960s and 1970s, most notably Signals: Newsbulletin of the Centre for Advanced Creative Study, edited by David Medalla between 1964-66. The second considers how Black Phoenix drew on the oral and discursive spirit of artist-activist alliances in London during the 1970s, particularly through Araeen’s participation in the politico-creative platform Artists For Democracy (1974-77). Witnessing the allegiances and differences between participants in this group, Black Phoenix evolved not only to voice idealism, but also to engage with the contradictions, challenges and failures at stake in the formation of ‘Third World’ alliances.
This talk explores how the notion of ‘experimentalism’ – a term circulated in numerous guises - h... more This talk explores how the notion of ‘experimentalism’ – a term circulated in numerous guises - has underpinned trajectories of performance art in Southeast Asia since the 1960s. It focuses on its early iterations in the Philippines and Indonesia. Between the 1960s and 1980s, these two nations saw the emergence of a number of conceptually and performance-leaning practices within the visual arts. Often described as ‘experiments’ within the contemporary, these works were intended to surmount the boundaries of fine art and trigger greater discursive production. However, they also served to navigate the cultural politics of the dictatorial Marcos (1965-86) and Suharto (1967-98) regimes. This talk argues that while these practices yielded formal similarities, their political motivations differed substantially across the two nations. In the Philippines, early proponents of conceptual and performance art often straddled the divide between independent ‘experimental’ practices, and government-championed forms of abstraction, installation and site-specific art. In contrast, in Indonesia the evolution of ‘experimentalism’, particularly as it has been associated with the works of Gerakan Seni Rupa Baru (Indonesian New Art Movement), agitated for greater social and political consciousness. Highlighting these differences, this talk calls for a tracing of performance art histories through the lens of ‘experimentalism’, which accounts for interconnections and parallel streams of interest (as opposed to linear progressions), as well as specific national contexts and dynamics.
Contrary to the belief that performance art and conceptual practices are recent developments in c... more Contrary to the belief that performance art and conceptual practices are recent developments in contemporary Southeast Asian art, the visual arts in the Philippines have been a fertile ground for experiments in process, interactivity and participation since the 1960s. From the installation-like ‘environments’ of Roberto Chabet (1937-2013), to the community-centered compositions of José Maceda (1917-2004), and even the interactive performances of David Medalla (1938 -), Judy Sibayan (1963 -) and Raymundo Albano (1947-85), artists working during the 1960s and 1970s continually sought to navigate the boundaries between experimental practices, the cultural politics of the Marcos regime (1965-86), and international discourses around contemporary art and the ‘avant-garde’.
This talk presents findings and reflections from my ongoing research on performance art and conceptualism in the Philippines. It explores the different roles and contexts through which Chabet, Maceda, Albano, Sibayan and Medalla came to deploy ‘process-based’ tactics within their art. Notwithstanding the fact that they hailed from different backgrounds - Chabet, Albano and Sibayan all produced art alongside careers as curators and teachers in public institutions in Manila, Medalla devoted his life to art while traversing the creative circles of Europe and the Philippines, while Maceda was active as a composer and ethnomusicologist in the Philippines and internationally – seen together, they provide valuable insights into the evolution of both practice and discourse. This paper highlights the ways in which they contributed to the development of a rich discourse around process, performance, and conceptualism through their practices, writings and wider socio-political engagements over the course of the 1960s and 1970s. It further uses their works as the basis to challenge two oft-cited assumptions about performance art and conceptualism in Southeast Asia more broadly. First, that these media emerged largely outside institutional frameworks within the region. Second, that performance art and conceptualism in Southeast Asia served historically as tools for institutional and political critique.
Speaking at the symposium 'The Readymade Century' (Haus der Kulturen der Welt, October 2017), Fre... more Speaking at the symposium 'The Readymade Century' (Haus der Kulturen der Welt, October 2017), French-Algerian artist Kader Attia argued for the need to reassess the legacy of Marcel Duchamp’s ‘readymade’ object as a challenge to the sanctity of art and its institutions. In light of his own practice (which excavates historical artefacts and reworks them into crafty installations), Attia argued that salvaging, researching and reconfiguring ‘found objects’ are now central strategies in contemporary art from Africa, the Middle East and Asia. They mirror a wider effort to unpack the fragmented and scattered vestiges of colonial memory. Taking up Attia’s call to think about assemblage art in the age of postcolonialism as an exercise in research, this paper argues that this approach has developed a strong foothold in contemporary art from Southeast Asia. It is particularly compelling for artists whose work explores the diasporic predicament and liminality of Southeast Asia in European histories. Focusing on UK-based public performances of Filipino artists David Medalla and Noel Ed De Leon, as well as the research strategies of UK-based Singaporean artist Erika Tan and Thai multimedia artist Arin Rungjang, this paper discusses the diverse approaches to navigating the boundaries between assemblage, research and re-enactment in exploring forgotten and marginal histories of Southeast Asia in Europe.
Philippines-born artist David Medalla has long-espoused a diverse practice which converses with ‘... more Philippines-born artist David Medalla has long-espoused a diverse practice which converses with ‘conceptual art’ in a range of formal and philosophical ways. Describing his own sculptural and performance works in the 1960s and 1970s as non-instructional, open to all, poetic in form and content, and, above all else, rooted in an international outlook, Medalla’s works from the period offer rich case studies for questioning conceptualism as intersectional practice. My paper explores the possibilities and limitations of situating his early practices at the crossroad between conceptualism in Europe (as envisioned in the curatorial and academic frameworks of Harald Szeemann, Sigi Krauss, and Guy Brett, among others), and art and politics in the Philippines in the late 1960s. I will focus here on Medalla’s transition away from kinetic sculpture in the mid-1960s, towards a cross-pollination of conceptualism, performance art and socio-political engagements which followed the artist’s travels around Africa and Asia which culminated in a longer stay in the Philippines in 1969. I propose that the Philippine Conceptualism which surfaced around the time of Medalla’s return did not pose a formal influence on his practice. However, it informed his understanding of the potential of conceptual practices to become institutionally and politically coerced – a notion which he then proceeded to explore and challenge through his practice in Europe over the course of the 1970s, and via his engagement with the ‘black art movement’ in Britain during the 1980s.
Talk for the launch of a newly-established archive of performance art from Southeast Asia, 'M.A.P... more Talk for the launch of a newly-established archive of performance art from Southeast Asia, 'M.A.P. (Moving x Archive x Performance): Archiving Asia', Live Art Development Agency, 3-4 November 2017
Since the 1960s, Britain has played host to a number of performance artworks addressing notions of cultural difference, identity and political agency. Its ‘transnational’ history lends a handy context for establishing a contemporary archive of performance art from Southeast Asia. In this archive, iterations of the body, resistance and struggle seem to weave links between the cultural politics of Southeast Asia and Britain. Yet, it also raises concerns around how we present and frame performance art from Southeast Asia. In what ways should we see this archive as part of a lineage of performance artists of Asian, African and Caribbean descent working in Britain? Or rather, do the works from Southeast Asia speak to an altogether different set of concerns and influences? To what extent are identity and politics shared topics across these different performance art histories? This talk opens up these questions in an effort to invite further inquiries into the staging and archiving Southeast Asian performance art within the contemporary British context.
Shifting away from studies on public performance art as an act of racial or gender resistance, my... more Shifting away from studies on public performance art as an act of racial or gender resistance, my talk considers how live art may serve as a form of artistic citation into history. Drawing on Nora Taylor's appropriation of Pierre Nora's notion of lieu de memoire ('sites of memory'), my talk explores how artists of South Asian descent have enacted public, yet non-participatory performances across the UK and South Asia since the 1970s. Arguing that this mode of performance-making evokes real and allegorical connections between the artists' own biographies and historic moments, my paper calls for a closer examination of the relationship between public sites, private/non-participatory actions and visual documentation in the context of mapping performance art across Britain and South Asia.
Abstract for study day ‘David Medalla: A Consummate Internationalist’ Institute of International ... more Abstract for study day ‘David Medalla: A Consummate Internationalist’
Institute of International Visual Art, London, 19 April 2017
for symposium Lav Diaz: Journeys (University of Westminster, London, 4 March 2017) Reading Lav Di... more for symposium Lav Diaz: Journeys (University of Westminster, London, 4 March 2017) Reading Lav Diaz's Films through Philippine Visual Art History Informed by a deep-seated curiosity in human struggles, Philippine director Lav Diaz's productions have been widely discussed as socio-political critiques. However, looking beyond the films' pedagogical role, Diaz also employs a range of representational practices associated with modern and contemporary visual art in the Philippines. Focusing on Diaz's formal strategies-particularly his striking use of perspective, composition and realism-my paper brings his films into conversation with visual art from the Philippines. I propose a reading of his films as part of a tradition of representation which mediates on natural and man-made environments since the Second World War. Highlighting the importance which he places on phenomenological experiences, my paper compares and contrasts Diaz's practice to mid-century Neo-Realist painters, as well as more recent forms of performance art, conceptualism and experimental video and photography, arguing that for a constant slippage between the experiential, political and aesthetic in his work.
This paper presented my ongoing research into David Medalla's performance art, focusing specifica... more This paper presented my ongoing research into David Medalla's performance art, focusing specifically on his early 'participation-production performances' (sometimes also referred to as 'participation-propulsion performances'). The first part of my talk traced the role of socialist ideology in Medalla's early collaborations with America-born artist John Dugger in the works The Peoples Participation Pavilion (Documenta 5, Kassel, 1972) and The People Weave a House! (ICA, London, 1972). I argued that during the late 1960s and early 1970s, Medalla's growing interest in international socialist struggles formed an important basis for producing participation-production art. By invoking socialist ideologies and texts, these works served as a platform for voicing critical views towards capitalist exploitation in Europe and the Philippines. However, this mode of art-making was not determined solely by political ideology.
The second part of my talk explored the meditative, conversational and poetic nature of Medalla’s participation-production art. Following the misuse of Medalla's artworks by gallery visitors at the exhibition Pioneers of Participation Art at the Museum of Modern Art Oxford (‘Popa at Moma’) in 1971, Medalla began to reflect upon the artist's role in participatory art. I argue that participation-production performances such as A Stitch in Time (London, 1968/ Gallery House, London, 1972) and Eskimo Carver (Artists For Democracy, 1977) demonstrate Medalla’s commitment to art as, first and foremost, a social and aesthetic process – a feature which characterises his practice to this day.
The Cultural Politics of British South Asian Performance Art, 1960s to the Present, 2018
This research builds upon recent attempts to map the history of live art in Britain. Within this ... more This research builds upon recent attempts to map the history of live art in Britain. Within this growing body of scholarship, there has been a notable paucity of studies on performance art’s relationship to race and identity politics in the context of postcolonial Britain. In order to address this gap of knowledge, this thesis examines performance-based art by British South Asian artists working in the UK since the 1960s.
This thesis does not set out to compile a definitive survey of all British South Asian performance art. Rather, it focuses on select works by Prafulla Mohanti, Rasheed Araeen, Sutapa Biswas, Ansuman Biswas and the collective Motiroti. Situating performance art in the visual arts, this thesis explores why each artist employed performance at specific points in their artistic careers. Drawing on performance research, art history and cultural studies, it examines their works in light of four historical ‘moments’: the search for visibility in the 1960s and 1970s, attempts to generate confrontation in the 1980s, the use of embodiment as a challenge to multicultural policies in the 1990s, and, finally, the staging of ‘museum interventions’ in the 2000s. While these themes do not reflect a definitive history of ‘British South Asian performance art’, they illustrate the close-knit relationship between performance-based practices and the expression of cultural politics in the work of these five artists.
In conclusion, this thesis addresses the scholarly value of researching performance art history through the lens of one specific diaspora. Arguing that the works of British South Asian artists cannot be viewed in isolation from wider developments in post-World War II British art, it contends that mapping performance art history through the lens of this diaspora is nevertheless a useful starting point for further research into the cultural politics of performance art in Britain.
Conceptualism - Intersectional Readings, Inter national Framings Situating 'Black Artists & Modernism' in Europe, 2020
This e-publication includes a collection of revised and expanded papers from the conference Conc... more This e-publication includes a collection of revised and expanded papers from the conference Conceptualism: Intersectional Readings, International Framings, Black Artists & Modernism in Europe Since 1968 that took place at the Van Abbemuseum in December 2017. The conference and the accompanying e-publication gathers artists, curators and academics to consider two broad, overarching questions: Firstly, how to rethink conceptualism intersectionally and internationally as a strategy rather than as a movement; and secondly how to situate ‘black artists’ and ‘modernism’ within Europe? The conference and corresponding publication includes key note lectures by Iris Dressler and Valerie Cassel-Oliver. Sections on ‘Intersectional Readings’ and ‘International Framings’ are accompanied by a focus on the work of Nil Yalter, stanley bouwn, David Medalla and Mathieu Kleyebe Abonnenc. The e-pub is free to download and includes recordings of the original presentations.
Editors: Nick Aikens, susan pui san lok, Sophie Orlando
Associate Editor: Janine Armin
Assistant Editor: Evelien Scheltinga
Contributors: Nick Aikens, Juan Albarrán, Lotte Arndt, Eva Bentcheva, Sonia Boyce, Jennifer Burris, Valerie Cassel Oliver, Laura Castagnini, Alice Correia, Sandra Delacourt,David Dibosa, Fabienne Dumont, Iris Dressler, E. C. Feiss, Annie Fletcher, Alexandra Kokoli, Charl Landvreugd,Elisabeth Lebovici, Christa-Maria Lerm Hayes, susan pui san lok, Sophie Orlando, Sumesh Sharma, Sarah Wilson, Wei Yu
Exhibition booklet for 'Archives in Residence: Southeast Asia Performance Collection', curated by... more Exhibition booklet for 'Archives in Residence: Southeast Asia Performance Collection', curated by Eva Bentcheva, Annie Jael Kwan and Damian Lentini, in consultation with Sabine Brantl, Haus der Kunst, 28 June - 29 September 2019.
Programme for the conference 'Pathways of Performativity in Contemporary Southeast Asian Art' (27-28 June 2019)
Van Abbemuseum Eindhoven, eds., 2020
Éditée par le Van Abbemuseum d’Eindhoven, sous la direction de Nick Aikens, susan pui san lok et ... more Éditée par le Van Abbemuseum d’Eindhoven, sous la direction de Nick Aikens, susan pui san lok et Sophie Orlando, cette publication marque l’aboutissement d’un programme de recherche international porté par l’University of the Arts London.
Proposant une relecture du conceptualisme et de sa supposée résistance aux politiques de l’identité, ce livre détaille les manières dont des artistes conceptuel.le.s se sont emparé.e.s, en Europe, de considérations migratoires, de genre, de classe, de sexe ou de race, après les bouleversements politiques et sociaux de 1968. D’approche intersectionnelle, cette réflexion s’articule autour de quatre focus, respectivement consacrés au travail de Nil Yalter, Stanley Brouwn, David Medalla et Mathieu Kleyebe Abonnenc.
Recent studies on Fluxus in Eastern Europe, Latin America and East Asia have expanded its histori... more Recent studies on Fluxus in Eastern Europe, Latin America and East Asia have expanded its historical and geo-political map. However, little attention has been paid to Fluxus activities in Southeast Asia. In contrast to the existence of interpersonal Fluxus networks in East Asia, Fluxus practices and principles reached Southeast Asia primarily through what art historian Reiko Tomii terms ‘resonances’ (2016). This paper discusses how Fluxus resonated in Southeast Asia through word-of-mouth, fragmented documentation, publications and gift-giving between the 1960s and 1980s. Focusing on such modes of transmission in the Philippines – a nation which had a prolific conceptual and contemporary art scene amidst the dictatorial regime of President Ferdinand Marcos (1968-86) - this paper examines the Fluxus resonances via two artists: David Cortez Medalla (1942-2020) who came into contact with Fluxus figures and ideas while resident in France and Britain between the 1960s and 1980s, and Judy Freya Sibayan (1953 -) who studied fine art in Manila during the 1970s when she developed a strong awareness of Fluxus practices from her peers, as well as circulating accounts and documentary materials. Through examples of their works, this paper argues that the Philippines - and Southeast Asia more broadly – does not represent a belated ‘outpost’ of Fluxus networks. Rather, it is a site where Fluxus’ playful experiments, exchanges, multiple authorship, and poetic gestures were actively ‘translated’ (Mignolo & Walsh, 2018) as part of a postcolonial vision to identify with what artist Robert Filiou described as the ‘eternal network’ (1967) of experimental art beyond national and institutional strictures.
Workshop: 'Worlding Art History through Syllabi' 11 October 2022 10:00 – 14:00 in person at the I... more Workshop: 'Worlding Art History through Syllabi'
11 October 2022
10:00 – 14:00 in person at the ICI Institute for Cultural Inquiry Berlin and online
The recent ‘global turn’ in art history and curatorial practice has prompted the question of how to reflect this through pedagogy. The workshop Worlding Art History through Syllabi takes up the notion of ‘worlding’ to explore how art history is taught in different places and institutions around the world. What would a ‘worlded’ syllabus look like, and how can we collaboratively ‘world’ global art history?
A ‘worlded’ art history rejects the idea of a single global world framed, ordered and represented according to Eurocentric premises or as universally constituted by global capitalism. Instead, it conceives of the global as constituted from multiple and entangled geo-cultural perspectives. It is not centered on assumed commonalities of ‘global’ art. Rather, it seeks to shed light on differences and relations. What are histories, epistemologies, and ontologies that constitute ‘global’ art? What are infrastructural or institutional incommensurabilities which define the many intersecting art histories of the present?
This workshop is organized as part of the international research project and network ‘Worlding Public Cultures: The Arts and Social Innovation’ (WPC) in cooperation with the ICI Berlin. It invites scholars from the fields of art history, cultural studies, cultural anthropology, media studies, museum studies and other related disciplines to participate in an peer-to-peer exchange of experiences and practices. It focuses on how scholars may, or already have, designed teaching syllabi to complicate dominant frameworks of ‘global’ art history. It is particularly interested in how syllabi have the capacity to restructure pedagogical approaches to teaching topics such as global capitalism in the art world, the so-called Global North-South division, transnational and transcultural entanglements, and differences between teaching regional art histories. This workshop builds upon recent discussions on pedagogies at the Worlding Public Cultures Academy, Lessons Learned? Transcultural Perspectives in Curating and Pedagogies (14-16 July 2022), hosted by the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden. It takes the form of an interactive gathering. Participants are invited to share examples of their own syllabi, as well as speak on the challenges faced in designing syllabi to reflect multiple geo-cultural perspectives, decolonial and ‘global’ art histories. Among the questions which this workshop seeks to address are:
● In your experience, how is the situatedness of art history taught across your respective regional, national and local context? • What methodological approaches do you discuss in your teaching?
● Which discursive, spatial and temporal frameworks have you structured your syllabi around?
● What role does close-looking of artworks play in your courses? How do you connect theoretical readings and visual materials?
● Have you been interested in re-conceptualizing art historical methods through comparative approaches?
● Do you define the notions of the ‘global’, ‘transnational’ and ‘transcultural’ for students? If so, how?
● What are your different approaches to structuring syllabi for undergraduate and postgraduate students? What information do your ‘foundational courses’ provide?
● What challenges did you come across? What did students and you appreciate the most?
● How have institutional and departmental interests shaped the scope of your teaching ‘global’ art history?
● Have you collaborated with museums or other art institutions in your teaching?
Credits:
Organized by the Heidelberg University team of Worlding Public Cultures: The Arts and Social Innovation (Monica Juneja, Franziska Koch, Eva Bentcheva) in collaboration with Ming Tiampo (WPC / Carleton University) and Birgit Hopfener (WPC / Carleton University), and in cooperation with ICI Berlin.
Funding:
WPC is funded by a Social Innovation Grant from the Trans-Atlantic Platform for the Social Sciences and Humanities and (within Germany) by the Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung (BMBF/DLR, no. 01UG2026).
WPC partner institutions:
The WPC platform brings together several institutions that pioneer transnational and transcultural research in the fields of art at Carleton University (Canada), Concordia University (Canada), the University of Montréal (Canada), the University of Quebec in Montréal (Canada), the University of the Arts London (UK), Heidelberg University (Germany), the University of Amsterdam (Netherlands), and Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (Netherlands). WPC is the first funded project of the international consortium Transnational and Transcultural Arts and Culture Exchange (TrACE).
https://www.ici-berlin.org/events/worlding-art-history-through-syllabi/
Lessons Learned? Transcultural Perspectives in Curating and Pedagogies Conceptualised and organi... more Lessons Learned? Transcultural Perspectives in Curating and Pedagogies
Conceptualised and organised by Heidelberg University’s team of Worlding Public Cultures: The Arts and Social Innovation (Monica Juneja, Franziska Koch, Eva Bentcheva, Miriam Oesterreich, Moritz Schwörer, Franziska Kaun, Seunghee Kim)
Location: Japanisches Palais, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden (SKD/Dresden State Art Collections), Dresden, Germany. Organised in the framework of the second edition of the Transcultural Academy organised at the Japanisches Palais.
14-16 July 2022
As the drive to expand, explore and inform museum collections through global histories gains momentum, a pressing question remains: what is the role of art historical pedagogy in the museum? The concept of pedagogy is etymologically posited on the distinction between an adult and a child, and privileges teaching over learning. In past decades, there has been a decisive move to rethink the role of museums away from teaching through visuality (Svetlana Alpers) towards becoming sites of emancipatory and critical learning. Exhibitions such as the Documentas X and XI (curated by Catherine David in 1997 and Okwui Enwezor in 2002 respectively) or the iteration of Havana Biennale directed by Gerardo Mosquera in 1989, adopted open transactions across curating, learning and teaching. In addition, a growing number of cross-disciplinary platforms and collectives across the Global North and South – small in scale, locally anchored, and horizontally organized – have brought forth radical modes of cultural critique and transnational networks opposing exploitation, precarity, homophobia, militarisation and xenophobia. The radicalism of such “micro-organizations” (Marion von Osten) has now begun to rebound on larger institutions. Presently, a number of museums, particularly in Europe and North America, are introducing forms of self-reflection about audiences and collections.
The international Academy, Lessons Learned? Transcultural Positions in Curating and Pedagogies, explores the successes and failures of existing pedagogical practices in museums, and potentials for new transcultural and ‘worlded’ approaches. Conceptualised by Heidelberg University’s team of the international research platform, Worlding Public Cultures: The Arts and Social Innovation, this Academy unfolds as a three-day series of on-site and virtual discussions and exhibition visits around the SKD from 14-16 July 2022. The SKD museums hold amongst the most important and expansive present-day collections in Germany that speak to histories of transcultural collecting and conservation since the 16th century. Given its commitment to critically reflecting historical as well as contemporary collecting and curatorial practices, SKD will hold a ‘Transcultural Academy’ at the Japanese Palace later in 2022. This cross-collections initiative aims to rethink curatorial presentations, current debates around decolonization and audience engagement via an artist residency programme.
The programme around Lessons Learned? will conclude with a seperate lecture and an ‘intellectual space’ on 20 July 2022 (16:00-18:00 CET on Zoom). This will feature a guest lecture by Prof. Emerita Claire Farago, two invited responses and a public discussion on how to (un)learn art history through university teaching.
Conceptualised by Heidelberg University’s team of Worlding Public Cultures: The Arts and Social Innovation. In cooperation with the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden (SKD / Dresden State Art Collection), this Academy unfolds as a three-day series of on-site and virtual discussions and exhibition visits around the various collections in the framework of the second edition of the Transcultural Academy organised at the Japanisches Palais.
Conference recordings:
https://voices.skd.museum/en/voices-mag/wpc-academy-lessons-learned-transcultural-perspectives-in-curating-and-pedagogies/